Knitting
by AngieT
Summary: When Merry finds Frodo undertaking some unusual physiotherapy after the War of the Ring he wonders where he picked up the skill.


Aunty Antirrhinum is an invention of my own – a bit of Gamgee gardening humour.

"Frodo? When did you learn to knit?" Merry asked with a frown.

Frodo, startling somewhat, dropped a stitch and muttered something under his breath.

"Aragorn says I have to start getting used to doing things with my hand," Frodo said, avoiding the question. "But how he thinks I can knit with only four fingers on one hand…."

Merry picked up the end of the misshapen article that trailed over his cousin's knees. "But what is it?"

Frodo twitched the wood from Merry's fingers. "Never you mind. And where is Pippin?"

"On duty," Merry sat down on the bench next to Frodo and stretched out his legs, crossing his feet at the ankles and puling out his pipe. "I however, have the afternoon off."

"You seem to have a lot of time off," Frodo looped his wool back over a needle and frowned in concentration.

"That is because Eomer is closeted in with Aragorn and Faramir and has forgotten all about me." Merry watched Frodo move the needles. "I've never seen you knitting."

"No well, you wouldn't have," Frodo sighed. "Aunt Antirrhinum taught me."

"What! That old Snapdragon!"

"Aunty Antirrhinum happens to be a very nice person – once you get to know her."

Merry lit his pipe, "Tell that to my backside, the amount of times she tanned it."

"I'm sure you were doing something to deserve it." Frodo came over all annoying elder cousin.

Merry sucked on the end of his pipe, drawing it to life. "Very probably," he had to concur between breaths. "So what in the Shire had you done to be taught to knit by her?"

Frodo sighed again, it seemed as though this afternoon was just made for suffering.

"Do you remember the year half of Brandy Hall went down with measles?"

Merry shuddered. "I still have the scars."

"Well I hadn't had them when I was young and so they send me away for a few weeks until the contagion was past. It seems if you catch measles when you are older it can have some nasty side effects. I was packed of to stay with Aunty Antirrhinum."

"Poor you!"

"Frodo! Frodo Baggins! Where are you?"

Frodo stuffed himself behind the coat rack and hoped he would escape notice. It was a vain hope. Aunty Antirrhinum, like all unmarried female relations had some sort of sixth sense when it came to discovering young hobbit lads doing what they should not be doing. He did not see how she could manage it. He could spend all boring day sitting and behaving with a book in the third best parlour but the moment he went to see how the pig would look in Auntie's May Day bonnet (the one with the stuffed bird on top and the purple feather trim) she appeared as if by magic and caught him at it. The result was that he had not been able to get the ribbons tied fully under Marigold's ample throat and the bonnet had fallen into a recently deposited pile of pig dung.

He had fully intended to safely return the bonnet to its box after admiring the effect but Aunty was not prepared to listen to reason.

"Was there ever a child to match you?" Aunty hauled Frodo out by his ear as he protested and yelped with pain. "I don't know how poor Esmie puts up with you. I am sure you cannot behave like this all the time or they would have sent you to live in Hobbiton by now with that cracked Bilbo."

In making his escape Frodo had also come foul of the pig dung and had slipped into quite a pile of it. Maybe that's how she had known where he was hiding. "What am I to do with you? Another sevenday of this and I shall be chewing my fingernails too. I take my eye off you for…."

Frodo phased out. He knew this speech by heart. He staggered along behind his Aunts billowing skirts as she hauled him towards the kitchen and the big copper tub which sat before the hearth. This tub was usually put to use for the washing but Aunty Antirrhinum had found it more expedient to wash Frodo, clothes and all in it.

"I never knew a child for falling in the muck like you." Frodo wondered when she found time to draw breath. Frodo's acquaintance with the tub was getting to be a daily event, except yesterday when his attempt to climb up onto the roof had precipitated him into the compost heap and, once newly dressed and warned to stay off the roof, he had, totally by accident, fallen into the stream at the back of the  
smial when sailing walnut shell boats necessitating his bath being repeated. Frodo hardly protested when his Aunt hauled him into the tub and tipped a bucket of less than warm water over his head.

It was not that Antirrhinum was cruel. It was just that her limited familiarity with children had never included an imaginative, over active child like Frodo. In many ways she was very nice. Once she had scrubbed Frodo's legs and feet with lavender soap she had him strip off and trample his soiled clothing in the tub.

Whilst Frodo was doing this she went to check the drying rack and the workbasket where most of Frodo's clothing now resided. She came back from both places with a frown on her face to announce, "You've got through all your things. Your breeches are either not dry or in the mending basket."

"Can't I wear the ones to be repaired?" asked Frodo.

"You tore the rear end out of them falling out of the apple tree yesterday."

Frodo frowned. "Well I can't go around in naught but a towel!" He managed to look scandalised even when standing in a copper tub in his wet underthings.

Aunty smiled. "Well, there is nothing for it. Get out of those wet things and dry off while I see if I can find you something to wear."

Antirrhinum was one of those hobbits who kept everything. 'You never know when it will come in handy' was her rule of life. As a result her smial was an amazing collection of mathoms, junk, broken and unidentifiable items, long out of fashion items. Frodo had rather enjoyed this accumulation of a lifetime and had found endless scope for dragon treasure or orcs horde finds. Now he was very much regretting that Auntie's aquisitiorial nature had lead her to keep every item of clothing she had ever owned from the age of about 12 up – or so Frodo judged by the fit of the blue and white gingham creation he was now modelling.

"I can't wear this!" Frodo almost screeched.

"Serves you right," said Antirrhinum. "You should have taken better care of your own things."

"But it's a DRESS!" Frodo whimpered plucking at the undeniable skirts.

"And very fetching you look in it too. That blue brings out the colour in your eyes."

Frodo flushed a bright shade of red. "If any one SEES ME…."

"Then you will have to stay in and out of trouble," Antirrhinum looked vastly pleased with herself.

"When will my trousers be repaired?" Frodo was desperate. He was wearing a dress! A big full-skirted girls dress! And to his utter horror – with his slight frame it fitted him perfectly. How he had not died on the spot he did not know.

"I have a shawl and bonnet to knit for the new Took lass and then I can do your trousers."

Aunty pulled her sewing basket towards her and Frodo looked with utter longing at the pair of his trousers sitting there – under a skein of pale pink wool.

"How long will that take?"

"A lot longer if you hinder me. Be quiet and sit still where I can see you or I will send you down the lane to get me some ribbon for it – In. That. Dress."

Frodo sat down on the kitchen stool. "How about if I help?"

Merry almost fell off the bench from laughing. As it was Frodo had to pound him on his back to stop the smoke going down the wrong way. Merry choked and spluttered but finally got himself settled.

"O but I would have loved to have seen that."

"Humph," was Frodo's only comment as he continued to work the wool through and over and round the needles with a skill which Merry had to admire – even with only four fingers on one hand. Frodo had always had long clever fingers and it did not seem he was going to let his disability stop him for long.

Merry looked back at the wool and frowned. "Hang on. That looks like Pippin's scarf. He'll murder you if he finds you messing with that! You've unravelled it!" Merry's horror would have been comical had Frodo been in the mood and not wrestling with the recalcitrant by-product of a Buckland sheep.

"Yes, it's Pip's scarf. Sam found it or rather its remains. It survived the troll about as well as Pip himself did." Frodo shuddered. "It was torn and covered in bl….. Well, it was not wearable. Sam and I unravelled it and Sam washed it. Now I just have to reknit it, and I would like to get it done before Pippin comes back off duty and finds it missing. He had it hidden under his pillow."

"You know how much that scarf means to him," Merry's voice was soft. "Dear Frodo." He choked a little and it was nothing to do with laughing or pipe weed this time.

Frodo's topped his work and stroked the fabric. "It's a little bit of the Shire." He cleared his throat. "It will be a little shorter than it was but… I wanted to reknit it for him."

Merry leant over and hugged his elder cousin. Then a thought struck him and he pulled back. "Frodo. You knitted it for him in the first place!"

Frodo nodded. "Yes, for his fifteenth birthday. I don't know how it has lasted this long."

Merry looked at Frodo. "I do," he said softly, "I do."

end


End file.
